


Keep the watchman's lantern lit

by cocoa_the_maniac, ladyofpride



Series: The Perfect Poison [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Betrayal, Garrison - Freeform, Guilt, Harrick, Hate Sex, Language, M/M, Manipulation, Sedation, Seduction, don't ever play with dart guns, too much whiskey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 13:05:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5335178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cocoa_the_maniac/pseuds/cocoa_the_maniac, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofpride/pseuds/ladyofpride
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jay Garrick trusted Harrison Wells about as far as he could throw him, but even he had to admit that the man would make a powerful ally. United, they probably <em>could</em> figure out a way to defeat Zoom...</p><p>[[Or: that one time back on Earth-2 when Jay Garrick cornered Harrison before the whole singularity fiasco and accidentally took him home for the night…]]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep the watchman's lantern lit

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This was written as a **stand-alone piece** at the behest of an anon requesting some form of rare-pair fic, although I wrote it in such a way that it could also be considered a companion piece to _[Never drink of the devil's water](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5217770/chapters/12030623)_. If you've never read that story, that's perfectly fine. If you have, then this piece fits near the end of chapter one.
> 
> Having said that, it's 2:30am in the morning, so I apologize for any lingering grammar or spelling mistakes in the text. This one-shot will probably undergo further revisions, depending on whether or not I scream when I reread it tomorrow afternoon, but such is the way of life...
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> [Small disclaimer: Keystone City is located just across the river from Central City, and in the comics it was considered the stomping ground of Jay Garrick. Captain Gil Barrow is also an actual character from the comics.]

“He can’t be trusted.”

Captain Gil Barrow, patient man that he was, had perfected the narrowed-eyed air of exasperation he was currently directing at the twin cities’ one and only _Flash._ That was because Jay was singing a very familiar tune this afternoon, one he recited almost daily since he first learned that the founder of S.T.A.R. Labs was working with the police.

It was his motto really, his new golden rule in life:

 _Harrison Wells could not be trusted_.

However, Jay had learned long ago that Barrow could honestly care less what the Flash thought of Dr. Wells, not least of all because the man spent almost all of his spare time down at the precinct. That’s why Jay was not at all surprised when Barrow took a deep breath then, folded his hands neatly together over the top of his desk, and said, “You _do_ realize you’re probably the only person in Keystone City who thinks that, don’t you?”

“I’m not wrong.”

“Well, experience has taught me otherwise.” Barrow nodded his head at his office window, the one facing inward toward the bustling bullpen. The anti-metahuman task squad was gathered just on the other side of the glass, having returned from their early evening patrol, sporting the lightweight armour and modified stun guns so generously donated to them by S.T.A.R. Labs. “Dr. Wells is in here almost every other week to help us with our new gear. Thanks to him, we’ve caught almost half as many of those freaks as you did in the last month alone.”

Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, Jay took a deep breath and nodded. He liked Gil Barrow. Really. He didn’t want to make the man’s life any more difficult than it already was, considering the maniacs he had to deal with on a daily basis. “Fine…but is there any particular reason you wanted to discuss Harrison today, or did you just call me down here to tell me he wants to file another restraining order?”

The corner of Barrow’s lips curled in an odd sort of smile, like he was genuinely starting to think this ongoing feud between the two of them was a little amusing. “No…no more restraining orders. As of yet. To be fair though, you can’t just barge into S.T.A.R. Labs and hurl accusations at him whenever the hell you feel like it. If you want to call him to task for something, you’ve got to have proof, kid.”

Agitated, Jay started drumming his fingers against the armrests of his chair. “So, if not another restraining order, _then_ …?”

Barrow sobered up a bit, sitting a little straighter in his chair as he cleared his throat and said, “Zoom’s been more active as of late, wouldn’t you agree?”

Jay didn’t know it was possible for the muscles in his shoulders to bunch up any tighter than they already were. Just the sound of that thing’s _name_ was enough to make him feel like the devil was leaning over him.

“He’s very persistent,” Jay admitted quietly. At first, he thought Zoom only enjoyed causing mass destruction for destruction’s sake, but he was beginning to wonder if the speed demon wasn’t really only doing it just to flush him out. “To be honest, I don’t how I’m supposed to deal with him. There’s no real pattern to his attacks. He’s also… _faster_ than I am.”

“Dr. Wells might have a solution to that.”

Jay shook his head. “I’ve already _told_ you—”

“ _Yes_ , I know…you don’t trust him.” Leaning back in his chair now, Barrow began to rub at his temples. “For the record, he’s planning a trap of his own. And personally, I think you could be an asset to him.”

“He’s going to get himself killed.” Jay replied bluntly. “Zoom is not as stupid as your average criminal.”

“If it were anyone else, I would tell them they were crazy, but Harrison Well’s is an incredibly clever man.” Barrow lowered his hands and shifted uneasily in his seat, as though he felt bad for what he was about to say next. “I think Harrison’s right, you know...Zoom’s been upping his game lately, and innocent people have been paying the price. Something’s got to give, kid.”

Barrow rarely, if _ever_ , tried to play the guilt card on Jay, mostly because he considered the police fortunate to have at least _one_ metahuman on their side. But Jay obviously wasn’t the only who had taken notice of Zoom’s strange obsession with him as of late and that had put him under some small measure of suspicion with a number of people at the KCPD...

Honestly though, Jay had _no_ idea what Zoom wanted from him.

“Look…” Jay sighed, “both you and Captain Singh believe Harrison Wells is going to help you bag every last metahuman in the twin cities, but until we understand what Zoom _really_ wants, I don’t think we have a chance in hell of catching him.”

Barrow crooked an eyebrow at him, evidently none too pleased with Jay’s defeatist perspective on the war against Zoom. But then he sighed a little himself, knowing full well that there was nothing he could really do to change Jay’s mind.

 “Fine,” Barrow said at long last. “Just…try to keep an open mind, will you? You don’t have to fight this creep alone.”

“I know,” Jay replied.

Even though he knew well enough otherwise…

~***~

He wasn’t actively searching for Harrison Wells that evening.

In fact, he usually went out of his way just to avoid the man, because simply _looking_ at Wells and knowing that he was practically getting away with murder was something more than he could bear. Which Wells really was, when you stopped to think about it, because the metahumans didn’t show up until _after_ the particle accelerator had its big debut, and Jay can almost count the seconds between that lovely little event and the moment that lightning bolt put him in a coma.

Jay Garrick didn’t believe in coincidences.

Never had and never will.

However, he’d learned the hard way that trying to publically out Wells for his role in the sudden surge of metahumans wasn’t going to work, especially since Harrison was lauded as a hero for the technology he’d developed to deal with them. The Flash might’ve been the one fighting the good fight out in the streets, leaving a spark of lightning and a trail of wind in his wake, but Harrison Wells was a mortal man armed only with his superlative intelligence and wit. It made him capable of standing his ground in an arena of men and women possessed of seemingly supernatural abilities—but at the end of the day, Harrison was really the only one among them most likely to die with a single well-aimed hit.

His _courage_ despite that risk was what really won the public over to him.

Won the military over to his side too, apparently.

Because unless Jay was mistaken, it was General Esther Campbell in civilian clothes he saw accompanying Harrison Wells into a small restaurant just a few blocks away from S.T.A.R. Labs, smiling and chatting as though they were old friends.

Normally, Jay would think nothing of it, just continue his run through the busy streets as he kept an eye out for trouble, but S.T.A.R. Labs was quite vocal in its stance against developing weapons for the military. So, unless Campbell and Wells were old chums, Jay couldn’t think of any reason the two of them would be dining out together.

He tried to put it out of his mind. He ran into Rag Doll, which helped a bit, but when he got back to his flat later that evening for a bite to eat, he found himself tossing on a clean pair of slacks and a his leather jacket before heading out. Soon enough, he was standing outside that same restaurant again, only this time General Esther Campbell was on her way out, breezing past him toward her car parked at the curb, while Harrison Wells remained inside alone, taking up a seat at the far end of the bar.

Against his better judgement, Jay decided then that he deserved a drink.

~***~

The first time he met Harrison Wells in person was nearly seven years ago.

And he was _smitten_.

Dr. Wells had that effect on everyone, of course, but it was one thing to admire a man from afar through his many journal articles and radio show interviews, and another entirely to stand not three feet away from him as he tore apart a long-time rival.

Especially when said long-time rival was none other than Dr. Gordon Wyse.

Wyse and Garrick were both considered experts on the great Heavy Water Debate, but whereas Wyse was a child prodigy and the founder of his own company, Jay was just a small town boy who had paid for his college tuition by playing football and who now worked alone in a little lab in the industrial sector of Keystone City. They had both been invited to the 25th Annual Symposium for the Interdisciplinary Sciences in Starling that year, although the differences in their social stature were only further accentuated when Wyse was requested to do a small talk during the morning presentations while Garrick had been simply asked to put up a summary poster of his work in the viewing hall…

Normally, Jay tried not to let little things like that get to him, but then Wyse wandered over to his poster later in the day to argue with him out in public, and Jay was trying _so hard_ not to ram his boot up the insufferable man’s ass that he almost didn’t notice Harrison Wells until the man was literally standing right beside him, staring at Wyse as though he had a bone to pick. Which he did, apparently, because no sooner had Wyse spotted Dr. Wells himself and opened his mouth to greet the man when Harrison shook his head and said, “You are _such_ a disappointment…”

Unfortunately, Jay had been taking a sip of water from his old thermos at that precise moment, so he was therefore too busy choking to hear Wyse’s pitiful response.

Whatever it was, Harrison could honestly care less, because he spent the next ten or so minutes pointing out the flaws in Wyse’s work and explaining why S.T.A.R. Labs _still_ wasn’t interested in collaborating with him. Powerless to defend himself, Wyse just stood there dumbly, slowly turning a rather alarming shade of red, before pivoting sharply on his heel and all but _running_ from the hall.

Jay blinked, coughed again to clear the last bit of vapour from his lungs, and then promptly froze when Harrison turned his cold blue eyes on _him._

For a second though, Jay decided that he wasn’t going to give a damn what the man might have to say about him. He just considered himself fortunate enough to finally be standing there, face to face, with _the_ Harrison Wells, one of the most brilliant man in the western hemisphere. Because while Jay usually pursued women, he still had a fair bit of appreciation for both sexes, and Harrison was a good-looking man, with a remarkably lithe figure and a curious little curl at the corner of his lips, which Jay imagined were very kissable—

—but since he felt that that was a _rather_ inappropriate thing to be thinking about the recently widowed man, he slammed the brakes down on that train of thought immediatly and tried to focus on something a little less overwhelming, like rock gardens or sea slugs…

“Dr. Jay Garrick, I presume?”

Jay wanted to say _‘yes’_ , but his voice failed him completely then, so he nodded instead and pretended to take another sip of his water, even though he had spilled it all out only moments ago.

Dr. Wells shoved his hands into the pockets of his dress pants and gave Jay’s poster a quick once over, head tilted thoughtfully to one side. “For what it’s worth,” he sighed, “I suggested your name for the presentations this morning… Maybe next year?”

Flabbergasted, Jay nodded again.

Quick to pick up on his nerves, Harrison glanced down briefly at the water stain on the front of Jay’s shirt and then nodded politely in return before wandering off.

And Jay just stood there. Like an idiot.

Because that was the _only_ time Jay had ever received a compliment from the man.

And it was perhaps the last time he had ever thought of Harrison as a hero…

~***~

When he took up the empty seat beside Dr. Wells at the bar, Harrison did a double take.

Then the man stared down at his scotch, shook his head, and said, “I almost didn’t recognize you without the salad bowl.”

“ _Helmet_ ,” Jay amended.

Harrison did this odd little upward tick of his eyebrows, like he could honestly care less. “Fine, _helmet_ … Although I still don’t understand how you get it to stay on your head without a strap. Superglue?”

“It’s a secret,” Jay replied, then he waved down the bartender and ordered a club soda.

After a long, tense moment, Harrison laughed a little under his breath. “Pesky metabolism, huh?”

“One of the perks of the job.”

“Do you ever miss it?”

“What, getting drunk?”

Harrison shrugged. Then he took a nice slow sip of his scotch, Adam’s apple bobbing in a way that caught Jay’s eye, and said, “No. The flavour.”

Jay found himself swallowing compulsively. “Not really. I never used to drink much before I obtained my powers.”

“Not even a beer on the weekends?” Harrison inquired softly, and since Jay couldn’t be sure whether the man was ribbing him, he straightened up in his seat and decided it was about time to cut with the chit chat.

“You working with the military now, Dr. Wells?”

For a second there, Harrison looked completely baffled. But then he glanced over his shoulder at the door and gave Garrick a very thin-lipped smile. “I lived next door to Esther as a child. Went to high school with her daughter, actually. I think I still have a yearbook lying around somewhere at home if you’d like to see it.”

Jay tried very hard not to feel as though Harrison had somehow managed to slip from his grasp yet again and gave the man a strained smile of his own. “You really are a wonder…”

“Thank you,” Harrison replied. “And now, I think, you should run along before you manage to make this conversation any more awkward for the both of us than it already is.”

Sound advice, except Jay was tired of having his concerns so casually dismissed by this man, so when Harrison polished off his glass of whiskey and motioned for the bartender to deliver his bill, Jay leaned in close and said, “Captain Barrow told me about your plan.”

And somehow _this_ stupid little lie worked beautifully, because Harrison made an incredibly pained noise, as though Jay had just told him global warming was a myth. Then he slapped his money down on the counter a little harder than was strictly necessary and muttered, “ _Did_ he now…?”

“You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“Shut up,” Harrison replied before glancing back at the door, clearly agitated by the unexpected turn in his evening plans. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed, this is not the best place to discuss _you-know-who_ and any plans I _may_ or _may not_ have for catching him.”

“Then we’ll take our conversation some place else.”

“Or end it all together.”

“Look—I _know_ you don’t like me,” Jay hissed. “I’m not exactly your biggest fan either, but as someone who’s faced off against Zoom and lived to tell the tale, _please_ believe me when I say this isn’t something you should be attempting on your own.”

Harrison gave him a very blank look, one that practically screamed ‘ _piss off_ ’, but Jay wasn’t backing down. He’d run this moron to some rainforest in Brazil and ditch him there if it meant saving his sorry ass.

Eventually though, Harrison leaned over in his chair and collected something up off the ground—a rather large satchel, actually, which he dropped into his lap and patted for emphasis. “Well, your lifetime ban at S.T.A.R. Labs still stands…so where do you suggest we go?”

Surprised by his sudden capitulation, it took a moment for Jay’s brain to register what Harrison was saying.

Honestly though, he knew just the place…

~***~

Harrison was none too enthused about being carried halfway across town without warning.

Which was evident in the way he shoved Garrick away bodily the moment they came to a full stop, although he regained his balance sooner than anyone else Jay had ever transported before. Then he took one look around the room, sighed in exasperation, and said, “This is not at _all_ what I was talking about...”

Apparently, he’d been hoping Jay would take them to the precinct.

Instead, Jay had whisked Harrison away to his own lab.

Well, not quite his lab, _per se_ , but one half of Jay’s open-concept flat had been taken up by lab benches and chemistry equipment, just a little something he could work on during his limited downtime at home. The far side of his flat, on the other hand, boasted a sizeable kitchen and small sitting area, as well as a large bed and dressing cabinet situated closer to his sole bathroom.

As a corner suite, there were large domed windows lining the two far walls, boasting an incredible view of the Missouri river and the tall towering skyscrapers of Central City on the other side. In the morning, when the sun rose, Keystone’s sister city burned like an amber in the distance, dazzling and bright and coloured with hope.

Almost against his will, Harrison looked a smidgen impressed with the view himself, opening his mouth as though to comment on it before he sniffed the air, frowned, and stared down at Garrick’s shoes. “I think you’re burning.”

…And so he was.

He’d forgotten he wasn’t in his suit.

“This never happens with my other boots,” Jay mumbled as he stomped his left foot out on the entranceway rug. He now had the awful smell of burning rubber to deal with, but sadly that was a common occurrence, one which could only be dealt with by cracking open a window.

“My lab is developing a friction-proof suit of sorts,” Harrison replied as he wandered farther into the flat. He passed by the nearest lab bench, obviously searching for a place to drop his bag, but upon finding no room decided to deposit it on the kitchen table instead. “I have an excess of material that I would like to work into my plan, actually. But first…”

As Jay walked over to the nearest window, Harrison opened his satchel and pulled out what looked an awful lot like a gun. Or rather a tranquilizer, because the next thing Harrison produced from his bag was a small see-through case containing three very large darts.

“This is what I was showing Captain Barrow this morning,” Harrison explained as he took one of the darts and loaded the gun. “Do you remember that sedative the city commissioned my lab to develop for you a while back?”

Intrigued despite himself, Jay watched as Harrison turned the weapon over in his hands, admiring how the light from the setting sun glistened off the polished metal. He did, in fact, remember the sedative, just a little something the hospital wanted to have on hand in case they needed to perform emergency surgery on Garrick again, seeing that normal anesthesia didn’t work worth a damn on him.

The first batch S.T.A.R. Labs had developed for him was a little _less_ than stellar though.

“It lasted maybe all of sixty seconds,” Jay replied, recalling his brief testing session at the hospital only a month ago. “I take it you’ve improved upon the formula?”

“I’ve been working on it personally. A single dose of this should keep you down for fifteen minutes, at the very least.”

Shaking his head, Jay propped open a window and wandered over to the table, bracing his hands against the back of a chair as he continued to eye the gun. “Let me guess—if it works on me, there’s a good chance it’ll work on _‘him’_ , won’t it?”

“We can always hope.”

“Then leave me with a sample and I’ll try it out tomorrow.”

“Why wait?” Harrison asked. He looked completely serious, which worried Jay a little. “Go lie down. I can give you a shot now.”

“Not with _that_ thing, you’re not,” Jay muttered.

Smirking, Harrison took a small step forward. “You don’t suffer from trypanophobia, do you?”

“Needles don’t scare me,” he replied, because, _really_ , they didn’t. Not since he was five, anyway. “The thought of leaving you unattended in my apartment, though? That gives me the chills.”

Harrison looked as though he was very tempted to roll his eyes, then he turned back to his satchel, obviously intending to just pack up and leave. “You’re so goddamn ridiculous, Garrick…”

“Can you really blame me?” Jay asked, reaching over to touch Harrison’s arm. He couldn’t afford to let Harrison leave just yet, not before he could figure out what exactly the man was planning. “Look, just…have a seat. At least tell me what’s in this sedative. You owe me that much.”

Harrison stared down at the offending hand and then arched a very fine eyebrow as his gaze wandered back up to Jay’s face. The corner of his jaw twitched in irritation, but then he slowly pulled out a chair at the table and took a seat. “Any chance I could bother you for a drink?”

Jay tried not to let his relief show as he wandered over to the kitchen. He did, in fact, have something. A bottle of Balblair whiskey actually, which was a gift he could no longer really enjoy, so he poured the man a finger and brought it back to the table before Harrison could blink.

However, Harrison had apparently been referring to something non-alcoholic, like water, but he accepted the glass politely anyway, took a sip, and complimented the flavour.

And that was how Jay learned that whiskey was Harrison Well’s poison of choice.

~***~

Harrison spent the first little while explaining the mechanism behind his sedative, how it was inactive _until_ it was broken down into a small polar metabolite in the liver. Theoretically, anyway. Since this wasn’t exactly something he could safely test on any other living being, Jay was honestly his only viable guinea pig.

Jay still wasn’t exactly eager to try out the sedative that night, so he steered their conversation toward the ‘suit’ Harrison had mentioned earlier, which then triggered a long discussion about whether or not it was entirely possible to produce frictionless material and what other uses that would have beyond producing new uniforms for the fire brigade.

Gradually, the evening slowly bled away into night, and soon enough Harrison began asking questions of his own, mostly about Jay and whether or not he had a higher tolerance to pain now that he had a heightened healing factor. Which he _didn’t_ actually, no matter how much he wished otherwise, because while Jay only used as much force as was warranted to win a fight, his enemies certainly had no such reservations…

“So…all sensation remains pretty much the same?” Harrison inquired, looking a great deal more relaxed than he did when he first arrived at the flat. Jay knew he had the whiskey to thank for that, even if Harrison wasn’t completely inebriated at the moment. The man knew how to pace himself, after all. “Even pleasure?”

“Pretty much,” Jay replied, finding himself staring a little harder than was necessarily polite at the long line of Harrison’s throat as the man polished off the last of the whiskey in his glass. “Do you want…?”

“God, _no_ ,” Harrison laughed as he set the glass down on the table. He looked good when he smiled. Younger, almost. More… _normal_. “I know my limit. But thank you, anyway. It’s a pity you can’t enjoy it yourself.”

Jay did, in fact, still enjoy a little whiskey from time to time, but the burn it caused at the back of his throat felt like an empty promise, as though in acquiring his powers he was no longer allowed that small measure of escape...

But he didn’t want to obsess over something as trivial as that, so he shrugged and settled back in his chair, watching as Harrison tilted his head to one side to stretch out a kink in his neck. The man winced in pain as he did so before straightening himself up again—and then he stared at Jay and let out a small huff of air, which sounded more like a laugh than anything else.

“What?” Jay asked, confused.

“You…have a very intense stare.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Harrison replied. “You just reminded me of someone for a moment there.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah...” Harrison sighed. “An old ex, actually.”

Jay suddenly felt incredibly embarrassed, because he _thought_ he was being discreet, and now he had no idea what to say to make it seem as though he hadn’t been openly staring at Harrison for however many hours they’d been chatting that night

Apparently though, Harrison wasn’t the least bit insulted, because he laughed good-humourly then and said, “ _Christ_ , Garrick, calm down…I wasn’t trying to unnerve you.”

“I apologize,” Jay said anyway, because, really, he shouldn’t have been thinking of Harrison like that, not after literally dragging him off to his flat and plying him with liquor.

“Shut up,” Harrison said, although with no real bite. Sighing, he picked his dart gun up off the table and began turning it over in his hands. “I could’ve told you to stop an hour ago, but I didn’t. To be honest, I found it a little flattering.”

Jay shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I mean, I’m not…”

Harrison stopped suddenly, as though something important had just occurred to him. Then he stared at Jay with his terribly blue eyes, no sign of humour or derision on his face, and said, “Be completely honest with me…You want to sleep with me, don’t you?”

Jay very nearly choked on his own saliva. “I…”

Harrison waited patiently for him to form a coherent sentence. However, when it became clear to him that no answer was forthcoming, he took off his glasses with one hand and placed them on the table beside his empty glass. Then he stared down at his gun thoughtfully and sighed.

“…I’ve been a widower for many years now,” Harrison admitted quietly, sounding a little tired. “Some people are too shy to ask and others are shockingly straightforward, but they all get that same look about them. You’re no different.”

Jay felt his breath seize in his chest, wondering what he could possibly do to express how terribly sorry he was for causing this man any discomfort—but then Harrison glanced up at him again and smiled a little, as though he wasn’t really troubled at all. “It’s kind of funny actually, because they usually like to break the ice by talking about my eyes. I have no idea why... Is that what initially caught your attention too?”

Despite how horribly exposed Jay felt just then, he didn’t want to retreat. Rather, Harrison’s little taunt had only managed to put a little fire back in his blood.

“Yes,” Jay replied, because it only felt appropriate to be completely honest with the man now.

“ _Yes_ , you want to sleep with me, or, _yes_ , you’ve been thinking about my eyes?”

“A little bit of both,” he admitted, “but…I’m not going to sleep with you.”

Remarkably, Harrison didn’t seem at all bothered by his response. “Why not?”

“Because you hate me.” Which was the absolute truth. “And because even if you’re genuinely offering, I don’t think you really want to have sex with me.”

 _That_ somehow managed to strike a nerve though, because Harrison visibly flinched before leaning back in his chair. Then he shook his head and rose from his seat, playing with his gun again as he began pacing across the room.

Agitated, Harrison said, “You’re a real old-fashioned guy, Garrick…”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“Not necessarily,” Harrison muttered, a little bit of that sadness edging its way back into his voice. Then he stopped to stare at Jay again and sighed. “To be honest, I just happen to like sex. If there’s a physical attraction, I usually go for it, so tell me right now that you’re not really interested and I’ll leave it at that, no questions asked…”

But he _was_ interested, and not just because of his own physical attraction to the man… There was still so much that Jay admired about Harrison Wells, not least of all his intelligence and cool confidence. And it was because Harrison could be such a powerful ally that Jay wanted the man to trust him, to open up about what was really going on at S.T.A.R. Labs, so that they could then figure out a way to deal with Zoom and the other metahumans...

He suddenly felt a little disgusted with himself, because he had never slept with anyone with the intent of manipulating them before, even if Harrison was clearly using him for his own means. But if Jay could just prove to the man that they wanted the same thing, to put the tiniest crack in his façade…

Slowly, he rose to his feet.

He was a little taller than Harrison. He was also, obviously, more physically opposing, which he hoped registered somewhere in Harrison’s mind, because it still wasn’t too late for either of them to back out of this little affair and Jay didn’t necessarily want to be the one to retreat.

But for every step Jay took closer the man, Harrison took a small step back—toward the bed, an easy curl at the corner of his lips, gun held loosely at his side. They continued moving like that until Harrison almost bumped into the bedside table, where he finally deposited the gun, fingers ghosting briefly over the gleaming metal before he turned to face Jay once more.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Harrison said, picking up on his lingering nerves.

No great feat that, given how badly he felt for wanting this man as much as he did. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Have I given you any indication that I don’t?”

Jay wanted to say no, but he still felt that there was something horribly wrong about this whole situation. And yet…Harrison looked as though he had no regrets, already lifting a hand to rest against Jay’s left arm, feeling the bulging muscle there.

“Harrison…”

“You keep waiting for me to run away, but that’s not going to happen.” Harrison took a small step forward, close enough now that they were almost touching, close enough that Jay could feel the man’s breath on his face. “You want to play the hero? Then prove to me you’re a man of action. Take the situation into your control.”

Jay swallowed.

His mouth was suddenly completely dry.

He just…

He _couldn’t_ …

Sighing, Harrison slowly dropped his hand from his arm, as though Jay had just let him down in the worst way imaginable. Then under his breath he said, “The only reason you’re never going to win against Zoom is because you’re a coward…”

Jay froze.

Clearly disappointed with what he perceived to be a rather anticlimactic end to their evening, Harrison moved as though to walk past him. But his words had indeed struck a chord, and before Harrison could take a single step, Jay slipped a hand behind the man’s head and pulled him in for a searing kiss.

Harrison’s lips were softer than Jay expected.

The man made a small noise of surprise, lips parting, a small invitation for the tongue that dipped boldly between them. It had been a long while since Jay was intimate with anyone, but this was a familiar dance to him, even with another man, which was why pulling a very masculine body flush against his own didn’t trip him up in the slightest, even as he divested the man of his suit jacket and began unbuttoning his dress shirt…

The speed forced suddenly surged within him then, excited, _tempted_ , eager to touch Harrison itself—

But Jay beat it back down again before any harm could be done.

With practice, Jay had learned a long time ago how _not_ to let the speed force set the pace of his sex life, but the urge was still there, that ever-pressing need to give into his racing heart and just fly through it. But he wanted to enjoy this. Wanted Harrison to enjoy it too, even if the man was clearly amused with the way Jay was struggling to strip him bare.

Fighting with the belt on Jay’s slacks, Harrison said, “To be honest, I’m really quite impressed with your level of restraint. You’re not at all tempted to race ahead to the good part?”

“There’s no such thing as a _'good part'_ ,” Jay murmured before stealing another kiss. Harrison just let him go for it, seemingly pleased with his response. “Besides, the frustration is half the fun.”

Harrison laughed, which was a beautiful sound, made even better muffled against Jay’s lips as he tipped the man over onto the bed and wrestled him out of the remainder of his clothes.

This was followed by an awkward struggle with the quilt and Jay’s own clothing, but then the tension between them settled somewhat and they were able to slow it down again. Jay went back to kissing the man, enjoying the warmth of Harrison’s body against his own and the way he tried to keep quiet as Jay’s nipped at the corner of his jaw, his neck, his chest, and lower still…

When he reached Harrison’s navel, he lifted his head to look up at the man, just to admire the view, the gently parted lips and terribly blue eyes, and said, “Tell me what you want.”

Harrison closed his eyes and let his head fall back as he laughed. “ _God_ , is there some sort of universal script...? You’d be surprised how many people ask that exact question when they’re in your position.”

Confused, Jay sat up and straddled Harrison’s thighs. “It _is_  an important question.”

“Yes, but you already _know_ what I want,” Harrison replied softly, opening his eyes again. He put a hand on Jay’s right thigh and gave it a gentle squeeze, fingertips oddly cool to the touch. “I want what you want.”

Maybe it was the hand on his thigh, or maybe it was the tone of Harrison’s voice, but something clenched pleasantly in the pit of Jay’s stomach then before he found himself leaning over to open the top drawer of the bedside table. He collected a condom and a bottle of lube, and then he shifted them together on the bed until he was settled between Harrison’s legs, one slick finger pressing _in_ as he covered the man’s mouth with his own and drank in the resulting gasp.

As Jay worked him open, Harrison finally began to show signs of impatience, threading his hands in Jay’s hair and pulling the man down to deepen his kiss. Between breaths he would urge Jay on—faster, _please_ —but Jay kept it slow, because just about everything else in his life ran in the fast lane and he just wanted to enjoy this…

Jay’s own eagerness won him out though. The way Harrison pressed his hips up against him had him feeling on edge sooner than he would’ve liked, so he sat up again and tore the condom out of its foil, then slipped it on and lined himself up, hesitating for a second as he waited for the other shoe to drop.

“Come on,” Harrison whispered, chest heaving, like a tightly wound coil just waiting to snap.

Jay capitulated, sinking in, mouth falling open in a wordless gasp. The warmth, the grip, the sting of Harrison’s nails digging into his back—it was just one long heady moment of pleasure and pain, of watching Harrison wince and react to the first few rolls of his hips before Jay settled into a steady rhythm that had the man pushing back eagerly into every thrust.

He kept it slow and gentle though, to make it good for the both of them, even when Harrison bucked hard against him and hissed “ _Faster_ ” like he had somewhere important to be before the night was through.

Jay had always had very little of anything in life though, so he savoured everything he possibly could, which included this little tryst with Harrison Wells—who seemed annoyed that Jay wasn’t letting him have his way, but who made the most amazing sound when Jay slid an arm under the small of his back to cant his hips up at a better angle and nailed his prostate.

Breath hot against Harrison’s ear, he smiled and said, “No.”

“ _Garrick_ ,” Harrison gasped irritability, but then he turned his head to one side and exposed his neck, and after the first tentative bite against his sensitive skin, Harrison relaxed his death-like grip on Jay’s shoulders.

“Relax,” Jay added, sinking in deep. “Trust me.”

Harrison hitched his thighs higher up against Jay’s sides, curling one around his waist. Then he shuddered and asked, “Do you trust _me_?”

Jay kissed the corner of his lips, hips stuttering, feeling an all too familiar pull at the base of his spine. He slipped his hand down between them, stroking Harrison, wanting to watch this incredible man fall apart at his fingertips.

They were too close now, both of them. Even without his powers taking the lead, Jay began to tremble, moving somewhat faster, _harder_ , like he needed to reach the precipice of that burning madness more than anything else in the universe.

Harrison was the first to tip over the edge though. He tilted his head back and tightened his grip on Jay once more, batting Jay’s hand away when it got to be too much. Jay tried to slow it down after that, to pull away, but Harrison kept his leg hooked over his hip and said, “Finish what you started,” as though he was almost disappointed that Jay wouldn’t follow through.

And _that_ did it, pushed him right on after Harrison, orgasm tearing through him the same way the lightning did, electrifying his senses and setting his whole world on fire. He lost himself in a moment of euphoria, a flash of light behind his eyes, and when he came to he discovered he had collapsed over Harrison, gasping into the dip of his collar bone as the exhausted man stroked a hand patiently through his hair.

He didn’t try to move until the world slowed to its usual pace, until his heart was no longer thudding against his chest and the strength returned to his limbs. He had a refractory period of maybe five minutes flat, so he moved just enough to slip free of Harrison, assuming the man might not be prepared for a second round so soon, and then rested his head gently against the man’s chest again.

Harrison didn’t fuss over the fact that Jay was still using him as a pillow, but eventually he sighed and said, “You never answered my question.”

Mind still hazy, Jay lifted his head to stare down at him. Then he kissed him, which Harrison allowed, because Jay knew the moment was about to be ruined when he inevitably said, “Tell me what happened with the particle accelerator.”

There was brief pause between them, but then Harrison laughed, soft and humorless, staring up past Jay’s head at the whitewashed ceiling. “I hate to admit it, but I’m a little impressed. Fucking me for information…maybe you’ve got balls after all.”

“No,” Jay replied, feeling as guilty as all hell. “I want us to be able to trust each other—to _work_ together. I can’t stop Zoom until I know how you made him.”

“There’s no off switch with you, is there?” Harrison muttered, rubbing his eyes. “You’re Keystone’s City shining hero, 24/7, even in the bedroom.”

“Harrison…”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, _this_ …” Harrison stretched over to grab the dart gun off the bedside table, which was a struggle, considering he was still pinned under Jay’s body. But when he settled again, he tucked the barrel under Jay’s ribs with alarming ease, smiled miserably, and said, “…is how you can make it up to me.”

Jay blinked. “You’re really going to test that on me now?”

“And you’re going to let me,” Harrison replied, using his free hand to brush a stray hair from Jay’s face, an almost tender gesture if not for the poison in his eyes. “Because you said it yourself—if this works on you, then there’s a good chance it’ll work on him, and I would like to know now before I leave tonight so that maybe I don’t ever have to talk to you again.”

Jay shook his head in disbelief. “Do you honestly believe he’s just going to stand there while you shoot at him? Is _that_ your master plan?”

“No, but somehow I feel the finer details of my plan would be lost on you.” Harrison dug the barrel of the gun in a little deeper. “Now, are you going to try to stop me or what?”

“You’re not going to shoot me,” Jay said bluntly, hoping that was the truth.

But Harrison’s expression darkened a little, as though Jay had somehow managed to let him down. Then he said, “You are such a disappointment,” and pulled the trigger.

Startled as he was by the sudden piercing pain in his side, Jay flinched and rolled over next to Harrison, reaching down to pull the dart out gingerly. The length of the needle… _Christ_. “Harrison, what the _hell_...?”

“Maybe you’re not a complete coward,” Harrison sighed, plucking the dart from his hand, “but you need to be ruthless in this war against Zoom. When you make a plan, you have to follow through with it, consequences be damned.”

Jay was beginning to feel numb. Inside and out, hand shaking as he dropped it to the mattress beside him.

The room was spinning.

“…Delayed reaction,” Harrison mused as he climbed out of the bed. “I’ll have to keep that in mind.”

“Don’t do it…” Jay struggled to say, wavering in and out of consciousness, “He’ll kill you.”

“He might… Or he might do unspeakably horrible things to me and let me live to tell the tale. Guess I’ll just have to wait and see”

Something about that sounded a little off, so Jay tried to ask him, _‘Do you know him?’_

But his mouth wouldn’t move and the darkness was closing in on him suddenly.

And his worries melted away as he surrendered to the void…

~***~

He didn’t know how long he slept, only that he woke to see Harrison standing by the kitchen table, dismantling his gun before stuffing it back inside his satchel. His hair was wet, so Jay was assuming the man had had enough time to take a shower, and he was smiling faintly, as though he felt this little experiment was a least something of a success.

When Harrison noticed Jay stirring on the bed, he glanced down at his wristwatch and said, “Almost twenty minutes. Maybe if we hook him up to an IV drip, we can keep him under sedation permanently? Let me know if you experience any nasty side-effects.”

“Harrison…” he mumbled, feeling small and weak.

“Don’t get up on my account,” Harrison muttered, heading for the door. “I’m more than capable of seeing myself out.”

Jay didn’t try to fight the drug.

He just laid there and wondered how long it would be before Harrison Wells wound up dead.

~***~

The next time Jay saw Harrison, it was in Gil Barrow’s office.

He invited himself to their private meeting, knowing full well that Harrison was going to go along with his plan with or without his approval, so when Barrow asked if Harrison had familiarized Jay with the finer details of the trap yet, Jay smiled politely and said, “ _Intimately_.”

Harrison smiled tightly in the chair next to him and proceeded to avoid all eye-contact for the remainder of the meeting.

Little did they know, this was only the beginning of the end for them...

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I often waver between loving Jay Garrick and being so phenomenally p***ed off at the man, I want to chuck something at this head, so I sincerely apologize if any of you feel as though I've written him OOC. I actually find it incredibly difficult interpreting his character, because while it's been abundantly clear that he's a hero, through and through, he's spent most of his screen time so far this season arguing with Harrison, which doesn't exactly paint him in the best light...
> 
> Harrison, on the other hand, seems to be lightening up a bit now that Team Flash is growing accustomed to his presence. He's a very a confident man, in no small part thanks to his massive intellect, but he has insecurities too. I just love him... He's the most interesting character on the show this season, at least in my opinion.
> 
> Anyhow, all comments and concerns are more than welcome! Also, if you feel that I need to add anything else to my tags, don't hesitate to let me know.


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